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The resurgence of democracies in non-Western world has been the global phenomenon since the mid 1970s. By now democracy has been consolidated in some countries, but some other new democracies remain precarious and unconsolidated. Transitions to democracy began with the institutional rearrangement of what Dahl called ¡*contestation¡± and ¡*participation¡±. Free, fair, and regular elections were introduced to realize these procedural conditions of democracy. Elections, however, did not bring democracy by default. South Korean experiment of democracy has been successful in terms of the introduction and the establishment of the formal and procedural features of democracy. But further democratization is stagnant and limited by the biased pluralism in the civil society. Regionalism and weak working class have been the two major sources of limited pluralism, which in turn makes the majority rule undemocratic in South Korea. This paper will discuss the possibility of the development of pluralism by tracing the recent changes in the social cleavage structure, regionalism, class cleavage, post-material and generation, and ideology. To do this the paper employs some basic statistical analyses of crosstabulation and simple regression. The survey data was prepare by the Korean Association of Party Studies and JoongAng Ilbo in South Korea in January, 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains why democratization destabilizes some asymmetric alliances more than others. I argue that democratization has the potential to destabilize asymmetric alliances because it unleashes a powerful force of nationalism in the political arena. Nationalist elites who come to power in democratizing states view military dependence and resultant foreign influence as a humiliating encroachment of sovereignty. Therefore, they demand an autonomous, equal partnership often in disregard of power disparity within the alliance. The major ally in turn resents their seemingly ungrateful demands and unreasonable policies, and therefore shows a decreased interest in the alliance. As a result of these frictions, the alliance becomes less stable. Democratization, however, does not evenly affect asymmetric alliances because it occurs in different threat environments and takes divergent paths. These factors mitigate or amplify the destructive potential of nationalist sentiments that democratization unleashes. This paper tests these arguments by analyzing three asymmetric alliances in which a weaker member democratized since the late 1980s: U.S. alignments with South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although in the long term, democratization is expected to exert pacifying effects on international relations, scholars have argued that conflict is more likely during democratic transitions. They argue that politicians in democratizing states are more likely to make jingoistic appeals, and coalitions of political, business, and/or military leaders are likely to form and to ?logroll? for military buildups and other destabilizing policies. This proposition has great significance for East Asia, which faces two potential political transitions: the democratization of China, and Korean unification. This paper tests a theory of democratization and conflict in the cases of three previous East Asian political transitions: Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. I test not only for the occurrence of conflict, but also for the presence of the predicted mechanisms through which conflict occurs (nationalistic appeals and logrolling). I find that although there is some evidence of nationalistic posturing that is consistent with the theory?s predictions, for the most part, evidence from these cases does not support the theory. Leaders did not make jingoistic appeals; they were more likely to preach stability. Furthermore, I find that the public, the military, and the business community do have substantial influence over policy makers, but do not find that these groups advocated military buildups or offensive military strategies. This study casts doubt on the relevance of the ?democratization and war? thesis for future East Asian political transitions; it finds support for theories in the liberal school of international relations, including the beneficial effects of democratization, policies of engagement, and economic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies a process-centered perspective to empirically evaluating the Korean historical experiment in the late 1980?’s with a division of government power into opposing parties. Examination of various empirical indicators on legislative process detects a positive result under the divided government. During this period, Korean legislature acquired a relatively active role in initiating legislative agenda and no longer acquiescently accepted policy ideas from executive branch. National Assembly also amplified its voice on budget issues and stepped up efforts to oversee executive agencies. The parliamentary ascendancy helped restore a power balance between government branches. Unfortunately, this experience was short-lived by the infamous Three Parties Merger. Korean political history since testifies a persistent imbalance of power between executive and legislative branches. Here lies a historical lesson that a divided rule of government by rival parties might be a good recipe in Korea for alleviating a hegemonic executive and institutionalizing a balanced democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the new left in Taiwan and South Korea and the renewed left in Brazil and Chile. I contend that the left can no longer best understood in terms of antiquated sociological or economic categories. The new left in East Asia and Latin America is a political project and its politics are embedded in the processes of democratic transition. My argument is simple: (i) Democratization, a variable process of change, leads to different patterns of new left organization. (ii) Meanwhile, the introduction of democracy, a form of governance with universally shared features (irrespective of how the transition to democracy took place), promotes the moderation of the new left across all four cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream thinking about democratization asserts that the establishment of free and fair elections forces political actors to compete for votes. Such competition disciplines parties and makes elected leaders respond to popular demands. However, political elites fight not just within the electoral arena but also over terms of entry into that arena. This paper examines struggle over electoral struggle in South Korea, a country widely considered a successful new democracy. High politicians there have turned repeatedly to tools - including regulation through the state, exclusive party nominating practices, and partisan symbols that foster regional monopolies - that circumscribe electoral space. Conflict over access to electoral success has had a profound impact on parties and modes of electoral engagement. This pattern can be traced to the historical relationship between the state and elections, pre-democratic modes of electoral regulation, and the controlled nature of the democratic transition. South Korea democratized, but directly into a state of democratic dysfunction. This conclusion offers a starting point for reflecting on the underappreciated tension between institutions and functions in understandings of democracy that prevail in debates on democratization and political regimes. Since democratic institutions can operate differently in different places, theorization of democracy can be more sensitive to context. An alternative way of thinking about democratization would incorporate such theorizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratization has often gone hand in hand with decentralization, but how do the two processes relate to each other? To answer such questions one needs fine-grained data on decentralization, and these have been hard to come by in South East Asia. This paper provides a careful estimation of the formal authority of regional governments in five Southeast Asian countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand - on an annual basis from 1950 to 2010. We estimate nine dimensions of subnational authority and find wide variation both across countries and across time. We detect a close temporal relationship between democratization and decentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is government spending used strategically in the emergent Asian democracies of South Korea and Taiwan? As nations generally considered to have weathered democratization, a study of government spending in South Korea and Taiwan is instructive on how allocations may be used strategically without undermining democratization process. This paper evaluates government spending for South Korea and Taiwan and compares pre- and post-democratization patterns. Three interesting results point to the value of longitudinal analyses of individual nations to frame expectations on spending and underpin robust findings: First, defense spending increases in election years in both nations, but not social welfare spending. Second, democratization does not exert an effect independent of elections and legislative fragmentation. Third, government spending is a viable resource for party building; however, this spending has to be targeted at building the nation's or party's strengths rather than aimed at divisive politics. While some of the results appear contrary to the literature, they are consistent with the governing party's efforts to broaden electoral support in emergent democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using recent survey data, this paper aims to empirically investigate the state and source of Korean citizens' trust and confidence in the National Assembly. Roughly speaking, the National Assembly is trusted only by one out of ten citizens. Since the country's democratization, citizens' trust and confidence has been eroding. Presently, the National Assembly is the least trusted among the key public or private institutions. A cross-national comparison of liberal democracies in the world shows that only a few national legislatures are less trusted by their citizens than the Korean National Assembly. Furthermore, this study confirms the empirical validity of performance-based explanation about what factors generate citizens' trust and confidence in the National Assembly. At the aggregate level, an erosion of citizens' trustful attitude toward the legislature is matched by their decreased positive evaluation of the overall job performance by the legislature. At the individual level, a citizen's legislative trust and confidence depends mainly on his or her evaluation of the performance of the legislature itself, the executive interacting with it, or the democratic regime as a whole. Most Koreans pass an unfavorable judgment on the performance of the legislature, not because they think it is a simply idle institution but because politicians are seen to pursue their partisan interests too frantically within the institution. Given its drained reservoir of citizens' favorable attitudes toward it, the present National Assembly, even with its heightened constitutional status and emerging policy activism, will not be highly likely to serve as a reliable agent for facilitating democratic consolidation on Korean soil. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Taiwanese and South Korean samples of the 2000-2004 Asian Barometer dataset, this paper confirms the Christian democracy hypothesis that Christianity (including Catholicism) contributes to democratization by indoctrinating democratic values and behaviors to their believers. However, the statistical analyses also support the religious market hypothesis that the logic of competition in pluralistic religious markets compels various religions to converge on dominant democratic values and behaviors within each country, although different religions and different countries continue to vary in the degrees and aspects of democratic commitment. These findings offer a more optimistic view for the prospect of non-Christian "religious democracies" than what the current scholarship proposes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists have not clearly articulated the links between democratization and political protest. Many studies have focused on whether or not social movements in a transitional period eventually attain their stated goals. Unlike the expectation that the more a political structure accommodates participation, the less people protest, protests have persisted in South Korea even after the country passed several tests of successful democratization. By defining outcomes only in terms of policy reforms congruent with demands, other outcomes are overlooked that point to structural transformations and changes in the capacity of social movements to remain key political actors after initial policy gains are achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effect of economic globalization and democratization on the political participation of women in South Korea. Representation of women in the country's formal government institutions; Changes in the attitude of South Korean women; Efforts made by South Korean women to press their country's politics to deals with gender equity; Reason for limiting women's participation in politics.

The article examines the role of Confucianism in Singapore, South Korea, People's Republic of China and Taiwan. It explores the widespread attachment to Confucian values in each of the countries and examines the ideology played in the four societies. It highlights the difference in democratization where Singapore and China are authoritarian regimes, while South Korea and Taiwan have made transition to democracy with authoritarian past.

What impact does democratization have on alliance policy? By examining American allies' contributions to the US-led multinational coalition during the Persian Gulf War (1990-91), I analyze the effects of democratic transition on alliance policies. The result shows that old elite leadership (South Korea) and competitive relation between civil and military leaders (Turkey) led to high commitment to alliance by increasing incentives for political leaders to inflate external threat and to strengthen alliance relation. To the contrary, new elite leadership and cooperative relation between civil and military leaders did not increase alliance commitment (the Philippines). This study implies that domestic conditions seriously affect the direction of international behaviors of new democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to present an alternative approach to understanding the politics of East Asian democratization with a special focus on South Korea. Taking the May Struggle of 1991—the largest political upheaval since the June Uprising of 1987—as a case study, it examines how peculiarly Confucian moral rhetoric and practices were employed (or exploited) in a series of authoritarian-democratic confrontations. My central argument is that Confucianism was neither in itself an obstacle nor its unquestionable contributor to the democratization of Korea; rather, it furnished both authoritarian and democratic sides with symbolic weapons cultivated in the uniquelyKorean tradition of Confucian moralpolitik. By seeing Confucianism as semiotic practices rather than a reified system of values, the article problematizes the contemporary discussion of "Confucian democracy" that overly glosses over its contrasting dimensions by either idealizing or distorting it. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, changing national identities have transformed the China-Taiwan and Korean conflicts. Democratization in Taiwan and South Korea, and liberalization in China, have forced leaders to compete for popular legitimacy by appealing to national identities. Along with the collapse of the Soviet Union, these contested national identities have been the main factors driving change in the conflicts—pushing China and Taiwan inexorably apart and toward a showdown, while helping to sustain what appeared to be a mortally wounded North Korea. This explains why one U.S. ally, Taiwan, has become more hawkish, while the other, South Korea, has turned more dovish. These foreign policy changes, in turn, have reinforced changes in underlying national identities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comparative study of the popular mobilization and democratic transitions in South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s. It presents a review of literature concerning the influence of labor mobilization on democratic transitions. It argues that the constructive role of social movements in democratic transition may have enduring effects on democratic reforms. It also explores the role of popular mobilization in democratization.